The Life Of Thomas Paine Volume II Part 6

The "contemptible ambition" thus veiled from Paine's friend, Jefferson, was revealed by Morris to others. Some time before (June 25th), he had written to Robert Morris:

"I suspected that Paine was intriguing against me, although he put on a face of attachment. Since that period I am confirmed in the idea, for he came to my house with Col. Oswald, and being a little more drunk than usual, behaved extremely ill, and through his insolence I discovered clearly his vain ambition."

This was probably written after Paine's rebuke already quoted. It is not likely that Colonel Oswald would have taken a tipsy man eight leagues out to Morris' retreat, Sainport, on business, or that the tipsy man would remember the words of his rebuke two years after, when Paine records them in his letter to Washington. At any rate, if Morris saw no deeper into Paine's physical than into his mental condition, the "insolent" words were those of soberness. For Paine's private letters prove him ignorant of any intrigue against Morris, and under an impression that the Minister had himself asked for recall; also that, instead of being ambitious to succeed Morris, he was eager to get out of France and back to America. The first expression of French dissatisfaction with Morris had been made through De Ternant, (February 20th, 1793,) whom he had himself been the means of sending as Minister to the United States. The positive recall was made through Genet.*

* On September I, 1792, Morris answered a request of the executive of the republic that he could not comply until he had received "orders from his Court," (les ordres de ma cour). The representatives of the new-born republic were scandalized by such an expression from an American Minister, and also by his intimacy with Lord and Lady Gower. They may have suspected what Morris' "Diary" now suggests, that he (Morris) owed his appointment to this English Amba.s.sador and his wife. On August 17, 1792, Lord Gower was recalled, in hostility to the republic, but during the further weeks of his stay in Paris the American Minister frequented their house. From the recall Morris was saved for a year by the intervention of Edmund Randolph.

(See my "Omitted Chapters of History," etc, p. 149.) Randolph met with a Morrisian reward. Morris ("Diary,"

ii., p. 98) records an accusation of Randolph, to which he listened in the office of Lord Grenville, Secretary of!

State, which plainly meant his (Randolph's) ruin, which followed. He I knew it to be untrue, but no defence is mentioned.

It would appear that Morris must have had sore need of a scapegoat to fix on poor Paine, when his intrigues with the King's agents, his trust of the King's money, his plot for a second attempt of the King to escape, his concealment of royalist leaders in his house, had been his main ministerial performances for some time after his appointment. Had the French known half as much as is now revealed in Morris' Diary, not even his office could have shielded him from arrest. That the executive there knew much of it, appears in the revolutionary archives. There is reason to believe that Paine, instead of intriguing against Morris, had, in ignorance of his intrigues, brought suspicion on himself by continuing his intercourse with the Minister. The following letter of Paine to Barrere, chief Committeeman of Public Safety, dated September 5th, shows him protecting Morris while he is trying to do something for the American captains.

"I send you the papers you asked me for.

"The idea you have to send Commissioners to Congress, and of which you spoke to me yesterday, is excellent, and very necessary at this moment.

Mr. Jefferson, formerly Minister of the United States in France, and actually Minister for Foreign Affairs at Congress, is an ardent defender of the interests of France. Gouverneur Morris, who is here now, is badly disposed towards you. I believe he has expressed the wish to be recalled. The reports which he will make on his arrival will not be to the advantage of France. This event necessitates the sending direct of Commissioners from the Convention. Morris is not popular in America. He has set the Americans who are here against him, as also the Captains of that Nation who have come from Bordeaux, by his negligence with regard to the affair they had to treat about with the Convention. _Between us_ [sic] he told them: 'That they had thrown themselves into the lion's mouth, and it was for them to get out of it as best they could.' I shall return to America on one of the vessels which will start from Bordeaux in the month of October. This was the project I had formed, should the rupture not take place between America and England; but now it is necessary for me to be there as soon as possible. The Congress will require a great deal of information, independently of this. It will soon be seven years that I have been absent from America, and my affairs in that country have suffered considerably through my absence. My house and farm buildings have been entirely destroyed through an accidental fire.

"Morris has many relations in America, who are excellent patriots. I enclose you a letter which I received from his brother, General Louis Morris, who was a member of the Congress at the time of the Declaration of Independence. You will see by it that he writes like a good patriot.

I only mention this so that you may know the true state of things. It will be fit to have respect for Gouverneur Morris, on account of his relations, who, as I said above, are excellent patriots.

"There are about 45 American vessels at Bordeaux, at the present moment.

If the English Government wished to take revenge on the Americans, these vessels would be very much exposed during their pa.s.sage. The American Captains left Paris yesterday. I advised them, on leaving, to demand a convoy of the Convention, in case they heard it said that the English had begun reprisals against the Americans, if only to conduct as far as the Bay of Biscay, at the expense of the American Government. But if the Convention determines to send Commissioners to Congress, they will be sent in a ship of the line. But it would be better for the Commissioners to go in one of the best American sailing vessels, and for the ship of the line to serve as a convoy; it could also serve to convoy the ships that will return to France charged with flour. I am sorry that we cannot converse together, but if you could give me a rendezvous, where I could see Mr. Otto, I shall be happy and ready to be there. If events force the American captains to demand a convoy, it will be to me that they will write on the subject, and not to Morris, against whom they have grave reasons of complaint Your friend, etc. Thomas Paine."*

* State Archives, Paris. etats Unis, Vol. 38, No. 93.

Endorsed: "No. 6. Translation of a letter from Thomas Payne to Citizen Barrere." It may be noted that Paine and Barrere, though they could read each other's language, could converse only in their own tongue.

This is the only letter written by Paine to any one in France about Gouverneur Morris, so far as I can discover, and not knowing French he could only communicate in writing. The American Archives are equally without anything to justify the Minister's suspicion that Paine was intriguing against him, even after his outrageous conduct about the captains. Morris had laid aside the functions of a Minister to exercise those of a treaty-making government. During this excursion into presidential and senatorial power, for the injury of the country to which he was commissioned, his own countrymen in France were without an official Minister, and in their distress imposed ministerial duties on Paine. But so far from wishing to supersede Morris, Paine, in the above letter to Barrere, gives an argument for his retention, namely, that if he goes home he will make reports disadvantageous to France. He also asks respect for Morris on account of his relations, "excellent patriots." Barrere, to whom Paine's letter is written, was chief of the Committee of Public Safety, and had held that powerful position since its establishment, April 6, 1793. To this all-powerful Committee of Nine Robespierre was added July 27th. On the day that Paine wrote the letter, September 5th, Barrere opened the Terror by presenting a report in which it is said, "Let us make terror the order of the day!" This Barrere was a sensualist, a crafty orator, a sort of eel which in danger turned into a snake. His "supple genius," as Louis Blanc expresses it, was probably appreciated by Morris, who was kept well informed as to the secrets of the Committee of Public Safety. This omnipotent Committee had supervision of foreign affairs and appointments. At this time the Minister of Foreign Affairs was Deforgues, whose secretary was the M. Otto alluded to in Paine's letter to Barrere. Otto spoke English fluently; he had been in the American Legation. Deforgues became Minister June 5th, on the arrest of his predecessor (Lebrun), and was anxious lest he should follow Lebrun to prison also,--as he ultimately did. Deforgues and his secretary, Otto, confided to Morris their strong desire to be appointed to America, Genet having been recalled.*

Despite the fact that Morris' hostility to France was well known, he had become an object of awe. So long as his removal was daily expected in reply to a request twice sent for his recall, Morris was weak, and even insulted. But when ship after ship came in without such recall, and at length even with the news that the President had refused the Senate's demand for Morris' entire correspondence, everything was changed.**

* Morris' letter to Washington, Oct. 18, 1793. The pa.s.sage is omitted from the letter as quoted in his "Diary and Letters" ii., p. 53.

** See my "Life of Edmund Randolph," p. 214.

"So long," writes Morris to Washington, "as they believed in the success of their demand, they treated my representations with indifference and contempt; but at last, hearing nothing from their minister on that subject, or, indeed, on any other, they took it into their heads that I was immovable, and made overtures for conciliation." It must be borne in mind that at this time America was the only ally of France; that already there were fears that Washington was feeling his way towards a treaty with England. Soon after the overthrow of the monarchy Morris had hinted that the treaty between the United States and France, having been made with the King, might be represented by the English Ministry in America as void under the revolution; and that "it would be well to evince a degree of good will to America." When Robespierre first became a leader he had particular charge of diplomatic affairs. It is stated by Frederic Ma.s.son that Robespierre was very anxious to recover for the republic the initiative of the alliance with the United States, which was credited to the King; and "although their Minister Gouverneur Morris was justly suspected, and the American republic was at that time aiming only to utilize the condition of its ally, the French republic cleared it at a cheap rate of its debts contracted with the King."*

* "Le Departement des Affaires etrangeres pendant la Revolution," P-295.

Such were the circ.u.mstances which, when Washington seemed determined to force Morris on France, made this Minister a power. Lebrun, the ministerial predecessor of Deforgues, may indeed have been immolated to placate Morris, who having been, under his administration, subjected to a domiciliary visit, had gone to reside in the country. That was when Morris' removal was supposed near; but now his turn came for a little reign of terror on his own account In addition to Deforgues' fear of Lebrun's fate, should he anger Washington's immovable representative, he knew that his hope of succeeding Genet in America must depend on Morris.

The terrors and schemes of Deforgues and Otto brought them to the feet of Morris. About the time when the chief of the Committee of Public Safety, Barrere, was consulting Paine about sending Commissioners to America, Deforgues was consulting Morris on the same point. The interview was held shortly after the humiliation which Morris had suffered, in the matter of the captains, and the defeat of his scheme for utilizing their grievance to release the United States from their alliance. The American captains had appointed Paine their Minister, and he had been successful. Paine and his clients had not stood in awe of Morris; but he now had the strength of a giant, and proceeded to use it like a giant.

The interview with Deforgues was not reported by Morris to the Secretary of State (Paine's friend, Jefferson), but in a confidential letter to Washington,--so far as was prudent.

"I have insinuated [he writes] the advantages which might result from an early declaration on the part of the new minister that, as France has announced the determination not to meddle with the interior affairs of other nations, he can know only the _government_ of America. In union with this idea, I told the minister that I had observed an overruling influence in their affairs which seemed to come from the other side of the channel, and at the same time had traced the intention to excite a seditious spirit in America; that it was impossible to be on a friendly footing with such persons, but that at present a different spirit seemed to prevail, etc. This declaration produced the effect I intended."*

* Letter to Washington, Oct. 18, 1793.

In thus requiring that the new minister to America shall recognize only the "government" (and not negotiate with Kentucky, as Genet had done), notice is also served on Deforgues that the Convention must in future deal only with the American Minister, and not with Paine or sea-captains in matters affecting his countrymen. The reference to an influence from the other side of the channel could only refer to Paine, as there were then no Englishmen in Paris outside his garden in the Faubourg St.

Denis. By this ingenious phrase Morris already disclaims jurisdiction over Paine, and suggests that he is an Englishman worrying Washington through Genet This was a clever hint in another way. Genet, now recalled, evidently for the guillotine, had been introduced to Morris by Paine, who no doubt had given him letters to eminent Americans. Paine had sympathized warmly with the project of the Kentuckians to expel the Spanish from the Mississippi, and this was patriotic American doctrine even after Kentucky was admitted into the Union (June 1, 1792). He had corresponded with Dr. O'Fallon, a leading Kentuckian on the subject But things had changed, and when Genet went out with his blank commissions he found himself confronted with a proclamation of neutrality which turned his use of them to sedition. Paine's acquaintance with Genet, and his introductions, could now be plausibly used by Morris to involve him.

The French Minister is shown an easy way of relieving his country from responsibility for Genet, by placing it on the deputy from "the other side of the channel."

"This declaration produced the effect I intended," wrote Morris. The effect was indeed swift On October 3d, Amar, after the doors of the Convention were locked, read the memorable accusation against the Girondins, four weeks before their execution. In that paper he denounced Brissot for his effort to save the King, for his intimacy with the English, for injuring the colonies by his labors for negro emanc.i.p.ation!

In this denunciation Paine had the honor to be included.

"At that same time the Englishman Thomas Paine, called by the faction [Girondin] to the honor of representing the French nation, dishonored himself by supporting the opinion of Brissot, and by promising us in his fable the dissatisfaction of the United States of America, our natural allies, which he did not blush to depict for us as full of veneration and grat.i.tude for the tyrant of France."

On October 19th the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Deforgues, writes to Morris:

"I shall give the Council an account of the punishable conduct of their agent in the United States [Genet], and I can a.s.sure you beforehand that they will regard the strange abuse of their confidence by this agent, as I do, with the liveliest indignation. The President of the United States has done justice to our sentiments in attributing the deviations of the citizen Genet to causes entirely foreign to his instructions, and we hope that the measures to be taken will more and more convince the head and members of your Government that so far from having authorized the proceedings and man?uvres of Citizen Genet our only aim has been to maintain between the two nations the most perfect harmony."

One of "the measures to be taken" was the imprisonment of Paine, for which Amar's denunciation had prepared the way. But this was not so easy. For Robespierre had successfully attacked Amar's report for extending its accusations beyond the Girondins. How then could an accusation be made against Paine, against whom no charge could be brought, except that he had introduced a French minister to his friends in America! A deputy must be formally accused by the Convention before he could be tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal. An indirect route must be taken to reach the deputy secretly accused by the American Minister, and the latter had pointed it out by alluding to Paine as an influence "from across the channel." There was a law pa.s.sed in June for the imprisonment of foreigners belonging to countries at war with France.

This was administered by the Committees. Paine had not been liable to this law, being a deputy, and never suspected of citizenship in the country which had outlawed him, until Morris suggested it. Could he be got out of the Convention the law might be applied to him without necessitating any public accusation and trial, or anything more than an announcement to the Deputies.

Such was the course pursued. Christmas day was celebrated by the terrorist Bourdon de l'Oise with a denunciation of Paine: "They have boasted the patriotism of Thomas Paine. _Eh bien!_ Since the Brissotins disappeared from the bosom of this Convention he has not set foot in it.

And I know that he has intrigued with a former agent of the bureau of Foreign Affairs." This accusation could only have come from the American Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs--from Gouverneur Morris and Deforgues. Genet was the only agent of Deforgues' office with whom Paine could possibly have been connected; and what that connection was the reader knows. That accusation is a.s.sociated with the terrorist's charge that Paine had declined to unite with the murderous decrees of the Convention.

After the speech of Bourdon de l'Oise, Bentabole moved the "exclusion of foreigners from every public function during the war." Bentabole was a leading member of the Committee of General Surety. "The a.s.sembly,"

adds _The Moniteur_, "decreed that no foreigner should be admitted to represent the French people." The Committee of General Surety a.s.sumed the right to regard Paine as an Englishman; and as such out of the Convention, and consequently under the law of June against aliens of hostile nations. He was arrested next day, and on December 28th committed to the Luxembourg prison.

CHAPTER VI. A TESTIMONY UNDER THE GUILLOTINE

While Paine was in prison the English gentry were gladdened by a rumor that he had been guillotined, and a libellous leaflet of "The Last Dying Words of Thomas Paine" appeared in London. Paine was no less confident than his enemies that his execution was certain--after the denunciation in Amar's report, October 3d--and did indeed utter what may be regarded as his dying words--"The Age of Reason." This was the task which he had from year to year adjourned to his maturest powers, and to it he dedicates what brief remnant of life may await him. That completed, it will be time to die with his comrades, awakened by his pen to a dawn now red with their blood.

The last letter I find written from the old Pompadour mansion is to Jefferson, under date of October 20th:

"Dear Sir,--I wrote you by Captain Dominick who was to sail from Havre about the 20th of this month. This will probably be brought you by Mr.

Barlow or Col. Oswald. Since my letter by Dominick I am every day more convinced and impressed with the propriety of Congress sending Commissioners to Europe to confer with the Ministers of the Jesuitical Powers on the means of terminating the war. The enclosed printed paper will shew there are a variety of subjects to be taken into consideration which did not appear at first, all of which have some tendency to put an end to the war. I see not how this war is to terminate if some intermediate power does not step forward. There is now no prospect that France can carry revolutions thro' Europe on the one hand, or that the combined powers can conquer France on the other hand. It is a sort of defensive War on both sides. This being the case how is the War to close? Neither side will ask for peace though each may wish it. I believe that England and Holland are tired of the war. Their Commerce and Manufactures have suffered most exceedingly--and besides this it is to them a war without an object. Russia keeps her-self at a distance.

I cannot help repeating my wish that Congress would send Commissioners, and I wish also that yourself would venture once more across the Ocean as one of them. If the Commissioners rendezvous at Holland they would then know what steps to take. They could call Mr. Pinckney to their Councils, and it would be of use, on many accounts, that one of them should come over from Holland to France. Perhaps a long truce, were it proposed by the neutral Powers, would have all the effects of a Peace, without the difficulties attending the adjustment of all the forms of Peace.--Yours affectionately Thomas Paine."

* I am indebted for this letter to Dr. John S. H. Fogg, of Boston. The letter is endorsed by Jefferson, "Rec'd Mar.

3." (1794.)

Thus has finally faded the dream of Paine's life--an international republic.

It is notable that in this letter Paine makes no mention of his own danger. He may have done so in the previous letter, unfound, to which he alludes. Why he made no attempt to escape after Amar's report seems a mystery, especially as he was a.s.sisting others to leave the country. Two of his friends, Johnson and Choppin--the last to part from him in the old garden,--escaped to Switzerland. Johnson will be remembered as the young man who attempted suicide on hearing of Marat's menaces against Paine. Writing to Lady Smith of these two friends, he says:

"He [Johnson] recovered, and being anxious to get out of France, a pa.s.sport was obtained for him and Mr. Choppin; they received it late in the evening, and set off the next morning for Basle, before four, from which place I had a letter from them, highly pleased with their escape from France, into which they had entered with an enthusiasm of patriotic devotion. Ah, France! thou hast ruined the character of a revolution virtuously begun, and destroyed those who produced it. I might also say like Job's servant, 'and I only am escaped.'

"Two days after they were gone I heard a rapping at the gate, and looking out of the window of the bedroom I saw the landlord going with the candle to the gate, which he opened; and a guard with muskets and fixed bayonets entered. I went to bed again and made up my mind for prison, for I was the only lodger. It was a guard to take up Johnson and Choppin, but, I thank G.o.d, they were out of their reach.

"The guard came about a month after, in the night, and took away the landlord, George. And the scene in the house finished with the arrestation of myself. This was soon after you called on me, and sorry I was that it was not in my power to render to Sir [Robert Smith] the service that you asked."

All then had fled. Even the old landlord had been arrested. In the wintry garden this lone man--in whose brain and heart the republic and the religion of humanity have their abode--moves companionless. In the great mansion, where once Madame de Pompadour glittered amid her courtiers, where in the past summer gathered the Round Table of great-hearted gentlemen and ladies. Thomas Paine sits through the watches of the night at his devout task.*

"My friends were falling as fast as the guillotine could cut their heads off, and as I expected, every day, the same fate, I resolved to begin my work. I appeared to myself to be on my death bed, for death was on every side of me, and I had no time to lose. This accounts for my writing at the time I did, and so nicely did the time and intention meet, that I had not finished the first part of the work more than six hours before I was arrested and taken to prison. The people of France were running headlong into atheism, and I had the work translated in their own language, to stop them in that career, and fix them to the first article of every man's creed, who has any creed at all--_I believe in G.o.d_."**